Her earliest memories are overwhelmingly grim, but there’s no wiping that smile off her face so many decades later.

“I’m a survivor,” declares Anna-May Borden, 78. “I wasn’t about to get crushed.”

And the biracial Montreal native wasn’t, although it’s hard to imagine how anyone who underwent what Borden had would ever emerge intact, much less so functional. She went on to successful careers teaching autistic children and operating retirement homes.

Borden’s story is vividly, heart-wrenchingly recounted in her book Nine Tears. Now residing in Toronto, she has come back to Montreal, with a film producer who plans to adapt her story for the screen.

The nine tears refer to Borden and her eight siblings.

In the summer of 1951, they were abandoned by their mother. Their father, a railway porter, was mostly away; when he was around, he was abusive.

So it was left to Borden and her older sister Shirley to take care of the other kids. Borden was all of 10, Shirley 11. The youngest was nine months old.

Against all odds, they managed to do so, although Borden allows that they would not have made it without the help of the now-defunct Negro Community Centre, the Old Brewery Mission and Camp Chapleau, which had been operated by the Mission until it closed in 2007.

Suffice it to say that there was little bliss in this family.

“It was soon after spending the summer at Camp Chapleau that my mother put us all on the chesterfield at home,” Borden recalls. “She gave me the Bible, she gave the baby to Shirley and she told us she was going to go to the movies and that she would be back soon.”

Three days later, their mother hadn’t returned. The kids were still on the sofa, with nothing to eat. No one at school seemed to notice that they hadn’t shown up, but officials at the Negro Community Centre did.

“We wouldn’t have made it without their kindness. Our father was away for a few weeks, so we were really left to our own devices.”

Anna-May Borden recounted her traumatic childhood in the book Nine Tears, which is the basis for a movie in the works from producer Tom De Azevedo.Pierre Obendrauf /
Montreal Gazette

The social services were alerted. Social workers visited and sought to place the kids with foster families. Their father objected and pledged to take care of them.

The family was soon evicted. So much for promises.

“All our belongings were tossed out into the street, and we ended up sitting on the outside step of the house for a day and a half, just crying that we had no food, that we had no mother or father to take care of us.”

Their father later took Shirley and another sibling to a friend in the city and moved the others, including Borden, to a remote ramshackle house on the South Shore.

“The house had actually been abandoned, and he left me there with the six kids in the woods, while he went off to work for long periods. When December came, we just about froze. So I took all the kids and we walked and walked until we found a store. The owner took pity and gave us some bread and milk.”

The next day, authorities came and put the kids in a temporary shelter. Borden’s father was arrested, and police were on the lookout for the mother.

“He had always threatened to kill her. So after the police found a body floating in the river, they took me down to the morgue for me to try to identify her. It wasn’t her, but at 10, it was rather traumatic.”

The mother was later found in Windsor, but was unwilling to return home to take care of the kids. She was then arrested for child abandonment.

“My father said if I didn’t press charges against him and that if I promised to take care of the kids, he would not press charges against my mother. So he moved us into an apartment in the city, where he came about once a week and where I took care of the kids.”

Borden experienced all manner of abuse when her father did show up. She shows the scars to prove it.

“I was beat up every day he was around, because he blamed me most for our troubles. He broke my neck. He broke my back. He broke my shoulders. He broke my collarbone. But he never broke my will.

“What’s even more amazing is that I even have pleasant childhood memories of being a Brownie and getting involved in a United Nations project.”

The kids all managed to make it through school under her tutelage and went on to various careers. Three of Borden’s siblings have since died.

For her part, Borden found purpose teaching children with special needs. She attributes her upbeat attitude to faith.

“If you don’t have the Lord, you have nobody,” says Borden, married and the mother of four. “That’s what kept me going.”

Vancouver producer Tom De Azevedo plans to turn Borden’s life into a dramatic feature, but concedes that fact, once again, can be so much more frightening than anything that could be concocted in fiction.

“Anna-May’s story is just so shocking,” notes De Azevedo, who is presently penning the screenplay. “But it’s also one of the most inspiring stories I’ve ever heard.”

This Week's Flyers

Comments

We encourage all readers to share their views on our articles and blog posts. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion, so we ask you to avoid personal attacks, and please keep your comments relevant and respectful. If you encounter a comment that is abusive, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box to report spam or abuse. We are using Facebook commenting. Visit our FAQ page for more information.